One approach for ion implantation or irradiation is to use energetic ions to remove material or reconfigure the ordering of atoms in a lattice. Since about a decade ago, the desire for new technology has fueled a renewed interest in irradiation to produce discrete track media and bit patterned media. As a result, there has been work using a variety of ions and many varieties of ion blocking layers and materials as evident from other patents. Many methods utilize high-energy ions since those are the most available ion sources. Since sources have not been designed for low energy ion irradiation, sources capable of providing low energy ion implantation are extremely limited. US Pat. Pub. No. 2010/0098873 to Verhaverbeke et al., discloses the use of lower energy ions and a masking layer to selectively render certain regions of a magnetic film to have different magnetic properties. The process discussed herein shares many of the advantages of ion irradiation, but also provide many new and important benefits.